Abstract [en]

Background: The competition is getting harder between the universities. To reach the high school students and discover which means of contact they prefer and how they perceive student recruitment are important issues in order to succeed in marketing strategies.

Purpose: The purpose with our report is to investigate, analyze and compare the student recruitment in three universities and investigate how the high school students want to be contacted. Then we compare to see if they think alike.

Method: We have done a qualitative study and chosen to use focus group interviews for the high school students and interviews for the universities to collect our empirical data. We have compared the empirical data and analyzed it with communication processes and marketing communication as theoretical grounds.

Result: All of the universities work approximately the same way with their student recruitment. They put a large effort in the Internet and social networks as well as the personal contact. We found certain differences when it comes to the catalogues. Our selection of high school students preferred the personal contact but at the same time they looked up a lot of information on the Internet. The high school students do not want to be pursued by regular mail but they would rather look up the information themselves.